


Master Plan

by alSaqr



Series: The Exile [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Sort of related to The Pirate Planet, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29088582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alSaqr/pseuds/alSaqr
Summary: Every good rivalry starts somewhere. This one starts with oolion.
Relationships: The Doctor | Theta Sigma/The Master | Koschei (Doctor Who: Academy Era)
Series: The Exile [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/20309
Comments: 10
Kudos: 3





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _We are the face of a new generation  
>  We are the ones who have no reservation  
> Don't give a damn 'bout your cold calculation  
> Don't care if you understand  
> Welcome to the Master Plan_   
>  **\- Adam Lambert, 'Master Plan'**

**GALLIFREY**

“I  _ hate  _ Gallifreyan History.”

Theta Sigma fell down in the grass with a dramatic sigh, covering his arm with one hand as though — by all accounts — he was in the throes of a regeneration and about to die. Koschei stood over him with his arms folded, and one eyebrow raised.

He had seen this sort of theatrics a hundred times over, and he knew that the best thing to do was to just let the moment happen. Theta would have a strop, and then he would lie and moan, and then he would be making jokes again before someone could say ‘Omega’s labcoat’. It was just who Theta  _ was _ , for better or for worse; expecting anything different would be a waste of everybody’s time.

Ushas, of course, thought differently. As she always did when Theta had ‘these moments’ she sighed, and rolled her eyes. 

Once, she had kicked Theta in the ribs. Koschei had kicked her back, and Theta had cried about how everybody was arguing. Mortimus had taken notes. Vansell had told Grand Cardinal Borusa.

“I don’t know,” said Koschei, sitting down on the grass beside Theta. “It was interesting today. And besides,” he winked, “we can hardly take over Gallifrey and make it better if we don’t learn how it works.”

“You and your ‘take over Gallifrey’,” sighed Ushas — who had been done with  _ all _ of them about fifty years ago, but still stuck around. “It’s going to be  _ all  _ of us.”

“What? I’m going to be Lord President one day.”

“If  _ anyone  _ is going to Lord President,” argued Ushas, “it will be  _ Theta. _ ”

“But I don’t  _ want _ to be Lord President!” bawled Theta, and it started all over again. Koschei did his best to ignore them.

Gallifreyan History really  _ had  _ been interesting — and he only said the megalomaniac stuff because he knew he would get a rise out of Theta. (Always, and without fail.) They had been learning about Rassilon, and the line of succession on Gallifrey. Of course, the Pythia had got only a scathing and brief mention. After that it had been a whole lot of talking about President Who and President What and how they had been elected after President Rassilon’s entombment.

It had been a long stream of names that they’d have to recall in their exams and then probably never remember again. But what had  _ redeemed  _ the lecture, in Koschei’s eyes, had been the talk about Rassilon’s heirs.

He hadn’t known there’d been  _ two _ of them…

***

“What about Rodageitmososa?”

Koschei’s ears pricked up, and he stopped pushing his quill around the desk as he looked up just in time to see Professor Borusa turn an entertaining shade of beetroot. He had stopped pacing back and forth in front of his lecture slides, and was gripping the podium with a look of utter disgust on his face. Koschei sat up, tilting his head to one side. He had no idea who had asked the question — usually,  _ no one  _ dared interrupt Borusa mid—speech — but he had the feeling the answer was going to be  _ good _ .

“Rodageitmososa,” began Borusa, slowly and far too carefully, his teeth grinding, “is scarcely worth mentioning.”

“But wasn’t she Lord Rassilon’s child, too?”

Koschei craned his neck as he tried to see where the question had come from. Theta looked too bored to have noticed the drama and Ushas was too busy dictating everything into her recorder, to replay the notes later. Mortimer sat at the back of the hall with the rest of the Deca, but would probably be listening in, too; he liked a good gossip.

It took him a second, but Koschei eventually spotted a Patrexean on the other side of the hall, whose friends seemed to be trying to shut her up.  _ Curious… _ he vaguely recognized her. Wasn’t her father the Academy Medicae, or something?

Borusa, meanwhile, twitched. “She was his Ward, not his child. They were of no blood relation.”

“But why wasn’t she considered as Lady President?”

There was a long silence. At first, Koschei thought that Borusa wasn’t going to answer, as the Time Lord seemed intent on glowering into the crowd as if he could set the offending student alight with his glare. Finally he responded, smacking the podium with his stick and making half the room jump in their seats.

“Rodageitmososa is an exile and a traitor. She is not mentioned in any history books,” he expounded, as though he took the question personally, “because her actions were an affront to what makes us Lords and Ladies of Time even when she was a Tot.

She was an insolent and rebellious stain on the Prydonian Chapter and faced the consequences of her actions when she defied Lord Rassilon and sided with terrorists. You will not find mention of her in the Matrix,” he sniffed, “and I will take no further questions on the topic.”

A murmur spread across the room — few people could resist a good story like that, whether supportive or not — and Borusa slammed his stick down on the podium once again.

“Quiet! If you are all so desperate to learn about Rassilon’s  _ rightful  _ heir, then you will turn to the appropriate page of your textbooks and refresh yourselves on the War with the Great Vampires…”

***

“What do you think, though?” asked Koschei, when Theta and Ushas were done arguing. He looked around the members of the Deca on the hill — himself, Theta, Ushas, Drax and Vansell — and grinned. “Of this secret heir of Rassilon’s, I mean?”

“Ward,” said Ushas, “not heir.”

“Yeah but without his son around still—“

“ _ I  _ think,” declared Vansell, matter of factly, “that Patrexeans should know better than to gossip like that.” He narrowed his eyes at Koschei. “Us, too.”

“I wonder who told her, though?” persisted Koschei. “If it’s all some big conspiracy.”

“It’s hardly a conspiracy,” sniffed Ushas, returning to her book. “She was a traitor, and she was erased from our records.”

“But  _ why _ ?”

“You heard Cardinal Borusa,” said Theta, shrugging. “He’s not going to talk about it. It’s not even in the Matrix.”

“Well don’t you think we should find someone who  _ will _ ?” His friends looked at him as though he was mad. “Don’t you think this is  _ fascinating _ ?”

“I think she’s dangerous,” said Drax, with authority. “That’s what they told us.”

As if sensing his friend’s rising temper, Theta nodded.

“I mean, yeah,” he looked at Koschei out of the corner of his eye, “but maybe we should know a  _ little _ about her. If we’re meant to change Gallifrey?” He bit his lip. “But you’re not going to go looking for her or anything, right Ko?”

“I haven’t got a TARDIS yet, Theta,” drawled Koschei. “So, no.

“If she’s as bad as Borusa said,” considered Ushas, “maybe she’ll come to  _ you _ .”

Drax snorted. “You think she’d be stupid enough to come back if she’s exiled? No, I bet she’s long gone. Maybe even dead. So drop it.”

Theta stuck out his bottom lip, and Koschei glared at Drax. 

“Well,  _ I’m  _ interested in her so no — I  _ won’t  _ ‘drop it’.” He started counting things off on his fingers. “What did she do? Why did she go against Rassilon? Why was it covered up?  _ What  _ terrorists?”

Ushas smirked. “Koschei has a  _ crush _ ..!”

“I do not!” Koschei pushed himself to his feet, eyes flashing. 

“No,” teased Vansell, “he’s just got eyes for Theta Sigma!”

Feeling himself blush (and seeing Theta bury his face in his hands) Koschei’s glare deepened. “I just think,” he continued, trying to change the subject back, “that there’s something they’re not telling us!”

“Koschei, please sit down…” said Theta, looking up at him through his fingers. Theta liked a good mystery as much as (if not more than) the next Time Lord, but he was completely  _ rubbish _ at conflict. So much so that he was almost completely drowned out by his older brother.

“Lord Rassilon died  _ centuries _ ago,” declared Drax, with all the air of someone who had decided that being a few years older made him so much smarter. “She’s  _ long _ gone. If it was important, they would have  _ told  _ us. They never mentioned her in  _ our  _ lectures.”

“Like they tell us _anything_ important,” muttered Koschei, darkly. “I just think she could be _interesting_ , that’s all.” But he sat back down, and let the topic drop — for now.

The conversation steadily moved along to inconsequential things. Koschei half—listened, but didn’t contribute. Ushas talked about her plans to do something with cats or flubbles or whatever. Theta moved to sit closer to him, making a chain out of weeds he’d picked in the grass and clearly uninterested in talking about Academia. Drax excused himself to go see a Scendelisian girl, apparently, and Vansell was waxing lyrical about the accelerated course to join the Castellan’s guard that he’d been interested in for years.

It would have been one of their normal meetings — albeit with only half the group — but Koschei’s hearts weren’t in it today. His thoughts kept coming back to Rodageitmososa, and what she had done to be  _ exiled.  _ It wasn’t something that happened, these days. Even in Rassilon’s Era it seemed extreme. And so it must have been something big — something universe changing, or at least enough to shake up Gallifrey and piss off Lord Rassilon. So why wasn’t she even so much as a cautionary tale? Why weren’t they allowed to know about her?

As the suns started to set, it was just him and Theta left in the grass. Koschei moved to lie down beside his best friend, fingertips dancing over Theta’s until Theta took his hand and squeezed. He grinned, some of the tension of keeping his mouth shut all afternoon and fussing over this mystery beginning to slip away. Theta rested his head against Koschei’s, and looked up at him with his bright doe—eyes and a concerned look on his face.

“You’re not going to run off and leave me, are you Koschei?”

Koschei snorted. “Where did you get  _ that  _ stupid idea from?”

“Because… because of this Time Lady you’re obsessed with.”

He couldn’t stop himself. Koschei laughed, and Theta pouted. “Oh Theta Sigma, can’t you  _ see _ ? We’re going to change the world. You and me.”

“ _ All  _ the Deca.”

“Yeah,” said Koschei, scrunching up his nose. “But I only care about you and me.” He paused; he knew that he could wrap Theta around his little finger if he wanted to, but he had to find the right words. “Don’t you think if we’re going to change the world, talking to other Time Lords who’ve tried is good research?”

“But she sided with terrorists, he said…” Theta bit his lip. 

“Probably just means Shobogan.” Koschei sighed. “Borusa’s  _ ancient,  _ you know how old fashioned he is. Besides I’m not going to do anything stupid like steal a TARDIS and try and find a renegade Time Lady without doing some digging.” He rolled over, pushing himself onto his arms and looming over Theta. “You trust me, don’t you?”

With little hesitation — and a slight hitch in his breath — Theta nodded. “Of course I trust you, Ko.”

“Good.” Koschei beamed. “So it’ll just be our secret, right?”

_ That  _ perked Theta right up. “Yeah. Our secret.”

“And you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to,” added Koschei, hurriedly. “I know Quences has you busy with Lungbarrow stuff right now.”

Theta laughed. “It’s almost as boring as Gallifreyan History.  _ Almost. _ ”

“Typical Theta.”

Koschei slipped back down to the grass and closed his eyes. Right now, he was content with just him and Theta.  _ Always would be.  _ But curiosity was eating at him.  _ Something  _ had held Borusa’s tongue, and he was determined to find out what. It felt like something was missing from the story, especially if she’d been removed from the Matrix, but he didn’t know  _ what. _

One way or another, some day, Koschei was going to find out who Rodageitmososa was.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“People who fit don’t seek. The seekers are those that don’t fit.”_   
>  **― Shannon L. Alder**

**QUALACTIN, 1978**

_Much, much later..._

“Well, that’s compensating for… something.”

Rodageitmososa stood at the bottom of the statue, and raised an eyebrow. It was at _least_ fifteen feet taller than she was, and made of a shining green stone of some sort that she didn’t recognize. The figure — apparently important enough not to warrant a name plaque — lorded over the residential square, arms folded across their chest. In a grand looking suit, with short hair and a well-trimmed beard, he looked more like a businessman than a king, or a hero, or anyone else who warranted a statue. He was looking down on anyone who would see him, and somehow managed to look insufferably smug even in sculpture. As Roda tilted her head to one side, it seemed as though his eyes were following her.

She sighed and crossed her arms, mirroring the statue. In her experience, people who had statues built of them fell into two categories. They had either done something heroic, and were dead, and had people clamouring around the base of their monument crying or making pilgrimages or taking photographs… or they were the kind of people who _wanted_ statues. And the man above her — much like Rassilon, much like all the sculptures she remembered from the Panipticon — very much looked like the kind of person who would commission a statue of themselves.

Commission, or _have_ built. There was an important distinction, and from the moment Roda had stepped out of her TARDIS she had had a bad feeling about Qualactin. It was quiet. Too quiet. Sometimes that turned out to be a cliché, and other times her gut was right. 

Her TARDIS was good at separating the two. Roda toyed with a leather strap on her wrist, turning down the volume on an in-built recorder before replaying the message she’d picked up earlier that day. An SOS signal from a mining facility on the planet. Making sure that it was quiet enough that only she could hear she put her back to the statue, and listened once again.

The quality was terrible, and she could scarcely pick up the words. There was something about a ‘Master’ whose surname she hadn’t caught; something about oolion, which she vaguely recalled was a mineral only found on a handful of planets, one of which had been completely ransacked and destroyed by pirates. And then there were the quarries and mines, which were so immense that she’d been able to see them from orbit.

Normally, she would have taken a little bit more time to do some research before storming in like a hotheaded young Tot with delusions of saving the day and being celebrated as a hero. But time, ironically, had felt like something that was of the essence. People were dying, and people were unhappy, and the air on the planet just felt wrong. Meddled with. She couldn’t have put a finger on _why_ she knew that, except to say that it was a Time Lord thing. Something about Qualactin wasn’t going the way it was meant to; and sometimes, you just had to get in and ask _why._

She glanced at the statue — was it made of oolion? Was the bearded over-compensator the ‘Master’ that the SOS spoke of? Probably. She’d done a _little_ reading on the way over; Qualactin was a Vegan colony, and the statue was _not_ of a Vegan. Perhaps that was the key detail she was missing. Whatever was going on, someone needed help. The SOS had been a single signal; there had been no suggestion on any record she could access that the universe at large knew that something was wrong. And so Roda had gathered her tools, and made a beeline there.

She didn’t trust law enforcement to do these things _right._

“What now…?”

Roda ran a hand through her hair, strands of her long, dust blond hair coming loose. It was tightly braided, but seemed to have a life of its own. Especially in the planet’s humidity. Her TARDIS was disguised on the outskirts of town, hidden in one of the sparse patches of dry, brown forest. It had been a half hour walk to get here down a straight, unguarded road. Apparently no one came to Qualactin for the scenery. _Which at least means no one will go snooping around for a tree that looks a little different._ From there she had followed her tracking device to what was seemingly a residential area; but there was either nobody here, or nobody willing to come out and meet her. The buildings were made of simple, sandy stone, and it was all single-minded and dull.

A stark contrast to the statue overlooking them. _Another_ point in favour of it being more nefarious than good.

But there was no sign that the buildings were or had ever _been_ lived in. No active shops, and only one very dusty looking eating establishment. No decorations, no lights on, no abandoned toys or carts or even tools. Nothing that didn’t look as though it had been there for years, anyway. _So where is everyone living? This is where the signal came from..._

She crossed the courtyard — not trusting the silence — and pulled a small torch from her belt. Shining it in the nearest window, she half expected to get yelled at for being nosy, but there was nobody inside, and only basic furniture. The window next to it was the same, and the building beside that, and the building beside that. Even if everybody was working in the mines she knew were on the far side of the planet, wouldn’t there have been shifts? Children and old people who weren’t working?

The light went behind her ear, and soon she had her lockpick set laid out on a windowsill. Selecting a tool with practised ease she soon got to work, conscious of the planet’s short day, and the fact that someone could alert the authorities at any moment. But it was the calmest break-in she’d ever been involved in, which only made her more anxious. No passersby to hide from. Nobody inside. No apparent alarms… Leaving the tools outside, she crept inside and gently shut the door behind her, and resolved to get in and out as quickly as she could. _And if it looks like this is going to be a dead end,_ she told herself, _just run._

Sure enough, there was nobody inside. The dust tickled her nose, and there was a draft coming from elsewhere in the house, but the silence was complete. Roda switched to respiratory bypass, and kept one hand on her knife. (The bow would be no use indoors.) Inside, it was an average-looking complex. The doorway opened into a dark corridor, lined with doors that seemed to lead to sectioned-off living areas. One was ajar and so Roda checked there first, holding her breath as she tugged the door open with one foot so that there was just enough space for a small Time Lady to squeeze in.

More of the same; an almost empty living area with a table, a few chairs and a dresser that on examination, looked to be full of cutlery and plates. There were no pictures on the wall, and while it seemed comfortable enough, it had the air of a barracks, or somewhere communal. But nothing had been touched in a while, and her fingers left marks in the heavy dust as she slowly closed the drawer again and turned around. A little to her left another door led to what turned out to be a basic kitchen, which at least let in a little bit more light. But as Roda went to explore _it_ as well, the floor gave way beneath her foot with a muted crumple.

She caught herself just before she hit the ground, swearing inwardly at the noise she had made. With one elbow hooked on the door handle she gave her ankle a stretch to make sure she hadn’t gone over it. It felt fine… a bit tender, nothing broken anyway. She sighed with relief, looking over her shoulder in case the hubbub had gotten the attention of anybody of the apparent no one outside. _Still a ghost town. This place is falling apart, I must have found an abandoned town… whoever sent the signal probably isn’t hanging around._

From her new angle on the ground, though, a flash of light caught her eye; an insistent, steady pattern of orange blinking quick, quick, slow, and then repeating the pattern. Tilting her head to one side, Roda crouched further down, trying to get a better look. It seemed to be some kind of metal box? Scrap wires poked out of one side, and there was a bent out of shape aerial that looked like it had been damaged as someone had hastily stuffed it under a counter. Looking more closely she could see a disturbance in the dust, where it might have been dragged in and out of its hiding spot. And more interestingly, a couple of stray footprints leading to a back door on the other side of the room.

“Right,” she murmured, crawling forward and groping into the darkness for the box. _Rassilon only knows what could be under here…_ It was pressed against the wall, and she had to leave her bow on the ground, and stick her arm in right up to the shoulder. “Let’s get a look at you.”

She _just_ managed to get her fingers around a handle and pulled, grimacing as she tore open her shirt in the process, leaving a thin line of blood where the underside of the counter had scratched her. _I’ll have to clean that up later._ The sting ignored - she’d had a lot worse than a little scratch, and there would be something in the TARDIS to clean it up with - she sat down on her haunches and surveyed her find.

“Gotcha!” Grinning, Roda tested the dials. “You look like you could get a message off-planet in a pinch.”

A deafening roar of static rewarded her and she hastily turned it off again, hissing in frustration. _Not that, then._ But if she was lucky, it would keep a record of past broadcasts; there would be a chip inside, and she might be able to hear the SOS in better quality. _From the safety of a TARDIS._ Lost in the task, stuck the torch in her mouth, Roda dug a magnetic screwdriver. Getting the casing open was easy work, and the string tying back her hair helped keep the bent-but-not-broken aerial in place. When she tried the dial again, it at least didn’t make an ungodly noise. But instead, there was silence. She tried fiddling with it a few times, even reconfiguring the range with her sonic, to no avail.

It wasn’t hard to find the chip she wanted, so she fell back on her first plan. But as she was snipping it free of its seating, the sound of the front door opening jolted her out of her focus. Roda froze, and then hastily — more roughly than she liked — removed the chip and thrust the lid back onto the casing with the screws still loose. _They can put it back together, probably._ Kicking it under the counter she stuffed the chip into a pocket, gathered up her tools and glanced at the back door.

She could probably get through it and find another way back to her TARDIS, but it would probably be clear somebody had been there. _Future me can deal with that._ That was what time machines were for.

The plan went to pieces as a shadow blotted out the light from the back door. Roda swore out loud as the handle went down, frantically looking for a hiding place that she knew didn’t exist. Maybe she could push past them? But there was still noise behind her, and her only option was to go forward. She stepped into a small, cobbled area that might have been a personal garden at one point. It was overgrown with plants that had long escaped their pots, but there looked to be a clear enough path between the thorns to vault a wall and make a break for it. And that was one thing she’d gotten very good at doing, since the Boeshane Peninsula - _running_. 

Spotting what looked like it might have been a wheelbarrow or something once upon a time, Roda took a quick second to make sure she hadn’t dropped either the stolen chip or any of her tools, she broke into a jug and then a run, ignoring the way that the plants curled and scratched, leaving tally marks on her skin, and put her foot somewhere that looked solid. She had just about managed to get a tight grip on the top of the high wall, however, when something heavy and metal clamped down on the back of her neck. The weight - hand? - grabbed her by the scruff, catching her hair and yanking backwards with a sharp, inhuman strength, nearly bringing tears to her eyes.

Roda hit the ground, rolling with the impact as the hand let her go, aware that she was going to bruise but already trying to work out how to get back to her feet. _That’s the difference between life and death. And I’m not facing it lying down, not ever again._ But as she got onto her haunches and prepared to launch herself past her assaulter, she felt the rush of air of someone stepping behind her a second too late. Spinning as she stood, kicking out at where a knee might be in the hopes of getting at least a blow in before she was grabbed, she didn’t see the chop to the back of her head until her vision was reeling and the ground rushed up to meet her.

She tried to stand, disorientated, hearts pounding in her chest, but her limbs wouldn’t obey her. And as she heard the heavy, metallic beat of footsteps surrounding her, her vision finally went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Together we'll exterminate, assassinate-!"_
> 
> _"No!"_
> 
> _"The finer points can wait, but first you gotta say my name!"_   
>  **\- Beetlejuice the Musical, "Say My Name"**

“Well, well, well… who do we have here?”

If Roda had thought that the statue was compensating for something, then the literal _throne room_ that she had just been, uh, _thrown_ into was just taking the cake. It was easy to tell where all the wealth on Qualactin had gone; why the small town that Roda had been drawn to seemed abandoned and run-down. The single room that she stood in was all but gold-plated. Well-lit, quasi-medieval, almost like a museum piece that had been recreated to make somebody feel good about themself. Stone walls, pristine wooden flooring. Old, but _costly_. Hints of green - the same crystal that the statue had been made of, she’d wager, which suggested that whoever had wanted a monument to their ‘greatness’ had also been in charge of the decor of this room. Had it been on the planet before - some remnant of days gone by? - or had it been designed to look that way? 

Wherever she was, it was a long way from where she’d been. She certainly hadn’t seen anything as big as _this_ on the horizon, when she’d landed her TARDIS. Was she on the far side of the planet? When she’d come to, she’d already been in the building, and time had felt just a _little_ bit off; the kind of feeling you’d get from teleporting somewhere by means far more rudimentary than a TARDIS. The sun, from its reflections on the ground through the scarce windows, was higher in the sky than when she’d begun. And since it wasn’t likely that she’d gone back in time, it meant that she’d travelled far enough for it to be earlier in the day. Then again, her head was still _spinning_ and so she’d allowed herself to be dragged to wherever she was going and only just caught herself as she’d been dropped, conserving her energy for planning an escape route.

_People who just want to talk rarely send their android lackeys to knock you out and toss you around._

And then there’d been the nagging feeling at the back of her mind, a pull of recognition that had tried to make itself known as she’d been dragged through corridors. Something familiar that she’d pushed away for the time being. She could investigate it when she wasn’t being carted about or ‘well, well, well’ed, or not, really. _It could be nothing. Not everything’s important, but helping these people_ is _. Because something is definitely going on here._ Although, it was possible she was a little biased, and a little concussed. The back of her head really _did_ ache.

Roda knelt on the ground, gathering her bearings before looking up at the speaker. Unsurprisingly, he was definitely the same man from the statue, but the carving hadn’t really done his _presence_ justice. He was tall and immaculately dressed, with that same sharp beard she’d seen already. He was dressed in a black suit with a crisp white collar, cut oolion cuff-links and sleek leather gloves that looked to be almost made for him. Even though he was sitting - one leg crossed over the other, head resting casually on his arched fingers, he still loomed over Roda in a way that had always been inclined to rub her the wrong way. 

_Could it be Rassilon..?_ She doubted it. What reason would he have for being here? But he gave off the same air of arrogance that made her want to roll her eyes. But where Rassilon commanded attention, this man _demanded_ it. He was clearly happy to be the centre of attention, but she got the feeling that he sought it out. Made it happen. She determined there and then not to give him the satisfaction.

Instead of answering him straight away, Roda looked over her shoulder at the two figures who had brought her here. She’d had enough time to work out that they were androids. They were far from hairy enough to be vegans, nor did they have the characteristic bug eyes or satyr-like legs. And their touch was clinical, plastic. _Almost_ but not quite like skin. They walked too mechanically, too neatly, and they had not responded to Roda’s attempts to kick or head-butt them with even the slightest indication of pain. That, and their fingertips thrummed like a massage chair where they gripped her.

Their skin was smooth and wide, their eyes like black holes. No pupil in the sclera, and no blush of colour to their skin that seemed like they had blood. Roda frowned, though, as she studied them straight on. She wasn’t sure, now that she looked at them, that they _were_ androids. The material was biological, their movements motorized but there was something off about them. Something very wrong. And then it hit her, and the blood threatened to drain from her face. She'd read every intergalactic law she could get her hands on, trying to work out what she was supposed to have done to earn her exile, what laws she had supposedly broken of what society or taskforce. One of those had been the Shadow Proclamation, which had all but been dictated to her during her time in prison. And at the back of her mind she had a vague memory of a sub-article about the creation of artificial beings without will or personality.

But on a Vegan colony, she couldn’t place what they were for. They didn’t _seem_ like they had been… _built_ with mining in mind. Had they been there to make life easier for the settlers? Had the SOS been about some kind of war she’d not taken the time to read up on? Or had they _always_ been private, _very illegal_ security…?

The man on the throne cleared his throat, obviously trying to get her attention. Roda smirked at the ground but fixed her expression before responding, turning and standing and tilting up her chin defiantly. Now she had a bargaining chip.

“The use of Gelem warriors is banned under Article 29.8 of the Shadow Proclamation," she dictated, with as much authority as she could muster. Not quite as much authority as she might have liked to muster with torn clothes and dirty knees and scratches all over her body, but hopefully there was an in-built well of ‘I am a Time Lord’ that she could fall back on. “Did you know that?”

For a second, what looked like surprise crossed the man’s face. But only a second. He looked down at her with a raised eyebrow, looking more _intrigued_ than threatened, and then uncrossed his legs and stepped down from his throne. Roda stood her ground, refusing to budge even an inch as he approached her, stroking his jaw.

“Really, my dear,” he looked her up and down, like he was assessing a horse he was considering placing an offer on, “was that the best bluff you could come up with?” A smirk played across his features as though it had made its home there. “If this is what a Shadow Proclamation agent looks like then I fear you are _far_ too undercover. Your clothes are in _rags_.”

“Being - literally,” she stressed, refusing to be intimidated by him, “dragged through a hedge backwards by your minions will do that to a person.”

“Minions is such a…” the stranger snapped his fingers, “such an unpleasant word. And _quite_ unfitting. ‘Minion’ implies free will and worship, and while that is _perfectly_ acceptable in some situations, I find it much more convenient when my task force just does what I say.” He looked straight at her, and then reached out to touch her face with his gloved hands, tilting her gaze to meet his. “Now, why don’t we try this again. Who are you?”

Roda kept her mouth shut and her face still. _Don’t show any fear, and don’t start a riot. Not yet, anyway_. But if he was impressed by her stoicism, he didn’t show it. Instead he simply shrugged and let go of her chin, pacing around her and examining her as he did so.

“So,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “My security finds you in an abandoned residential area,” as he passed behind her Roda heard him snap his fingers, and then patted her hip as she realised that _he_ had her tools. She hadn’t even noticed that they were missing, but it made sense, “with advanced tools designed for breaking and entering and…” he held up her snips, “ _breaking_ things-”

“Dismantling,” she replied, more or less under her breath. When he chuckled, she couldn’t help but narrow his eyes.

“Dismantling, then. Crude, but I will grant you, efficient. But hardly the modus operandi of a law-abiding agent of the Shadow Proclamation. That, and I rather think they tend to announce their presence when they arrive.” He shrugged, tossing her tools haphazardly back to the gelem warrior he’d taken them from. “So we can rule that out. Now,” he continued, tapping his bottom lip, “you are far more _agreeable_ to the eye than the locals, so you are certainly _not_ a Vegan.” Roda wrinkled her nose reproachfully. “Which means you are not a miner, nor a gelem warrior, nor law enforcement of any kind. Which means you are an _intruder_." In a flash he held a sleek, cylindrical object in one hand, pointed straight at her throat. “And I cannot abide that.”

Flinching only a little, Roda swallowed - hard - and decided that talking might, after all, be in her best interests.

“What makes you think I won’t be missed?”

The man shrugged casually. “You are _clearly_ working alone, stumbling into something that you have no idea about.”

Roda snorted. “Oh, I think you’ll find I know _more_ than enough to bring you down.” She stepped closer, until the object was pressing against her clavicle, calling his bluff and hoping that she wouldn’t pay for it. _He’s dangerous,_ she could tell, _but so am I._ “So how about you put down your toy and we talk.” The very idea was unpalatable - she _hated_ having to talk her way out of things like this - but she had already pegged the man as someone who enjoyed the sound of his own voice. If nothing else, maybe she could buy herself some time, and _actually_ learn some of the stuff she claimed to know. As it was, she could only make educated guesses, but that familiar sensation was _still_ nagging at her. “Equal to equal.”

Unfortunately for her gamble, the man… laughed. “I _hardly_ think that the likes of _you_ could be equal to…”

He trailed off, and Roda’s eyes darted from side to side as she tried to see what had caught his attention. Taking a step back while he was distracted she put up her hands - ready to go in for an attack - before realising that he was staring at her shirt. More importantly, the spot where she had torn it open with the underside of the counter, back in the homestead. _The brand…_ His mouth was open like he was about to say something, and she was just about to shove him away and try and get in a punch before he yelled for his warriors to step in when he suddenly gripped the fabric tight and ripped it open further with a brisk crunch.

“Hey!” snapped Roda, slapping his hand away, but he only maneuvered her with the other arm so that he could look intently at the brand, ignoring her discomfort. “You can’t just-!”

“Well,” he murmured, voice suddenly changing, so that it was almost full of… wonder? Roda tipped her head to one side, trying to yank her wrist out of his hold. “Perhaps I have misjudged you… Time Lady.”

And just like that, Roda knew what was so familiar about the room they were in. _Oh, you stupid,_ stupid _woman…! It’s so obvious even a_ Tot _should have recognized it sooner._ She tensed up as everything about the strange place began to make sense. The feeling of being out of time. The anachronism; both the advanced technology, and the almost medieval Sol-3 decor. The faint itch at the back of her mind that had started out an irritation and grown into a warning. And then before she had a chance to voice the words, she felt the stranger pocket his weapon and press his fingertips to her temples and the electric sensation of a way to communicate that she hadn’t felt since her exile.

It was a TARDIS. She was inside somebody else's _TARDIS_.

More than a little out of practice, she put up hasty mental barriers that felt as flimsy as paper. But he’d seen her brand and he’d felt her mind, and she could still feel him pushing against her thoughts with the curiosity of a puppy, excited by his latest discovery. _Wonder_ had been right. She could tell her was absolutely fascinated by her, and that for all that he _looked_ older than her, he was significantly younger. Rash, idealistic, rebellious. _Reckless._ A lot like a young Time Lady she remembered and yet, fundamentally, not. The realisation made her no less wary, but she couldn’t help but feel a pang of curiosity in return. _Maybe we_ can _talk. Maybe he’s not like the others…_

And then she remembered that he’d just threatened to kill her.

“Who are you…?” she asked, cautiously, wishing very much that she had her knife, or her bow, or even her pair of snips. Something to defend herself with aside from her fists.

It rankled even more than he had seen her brand, seen the Seal of fucking Rassilon emblazoned on her shoulder and knew that she was ‘wrong’ in the eyes of their entire society, without even knowing who she was up against. The man watched her for a moment longer, touching her brand in a way that was _far_ too intimate, his mind still probing hers for a gap in her defences. And then all of a sudden he removed both telepathy and fingers, giving her a small bow of the head and then extending his hand for her to shake.

“While I think it only _polite_ that you answer my questions first,” he said, smoothly, his smile now changed to the predatory one he wore before, “let me make up for my previous… impropriety.”

When Roda didn’t shake his hand he barely responded, and withdrew it as though it didn’t matter to _him_ what she did. _Although it clearly very much does._

“My name,” he said, with airs and graces, “is the Master.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a much longer chapter, but I liked the ending how it was..


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"I wonder if  
>  Anyone looked at me, forty years back,  
> And thought, _That’ll be the life;  
> No God any more, or sweating in the dark
> 
> About hell and that, or having to hide  
> What you think of the priest. He  
> And his lot will all go down the long slide  
> Like free bloody birds. _And immediately_
> 
> _Rather than words comes the thought of high windows"_   
>  **\- Philip Larkin, 'High Windows'**

For a while, Roda could only stare as a hundred and one questions went through her head. Questions like ‘what kind of name is the Master, anyway?’ and ‘what does a Time Lord want with an oolion mine?’ And at the top of those questions, balanced precariously on the edge of a mountain of shoved down feelings that was her sanity, was the absolute _kicker._ ‘Does he actually know who I am?’

She continued to ignore his hand, his change in demeanour doing nothing to put her mind at ease. If she had learned one thing since her exile, it was that Time Lords couldn’t be trusted. Not anymore. Self-appointed guardians of the universe, Lords and Ladies of time itself… Roda grimaced. There were a handful of Time Lords she trusted, of course it wasn’t _all_ of them… Peri. The Stranger. But Rassilon had made it perfectly clear that Gallifrey did not care for her, for truth, or for anyone else that dared speak out against a flawed system. And so she had no love left for Gallifrey, either; let alone a Time Lord that she had just met, who was breaking the laws of the Shadow Proclamation and could easily be the reason for the hacked-up distress signal she’d intercepted.

The irony of not trusting a criminal Time Lord was not lost on her, but this was not the time for self-reflection.

What did they say about her, on Gallifrey? Or did they say anything at all? _Probably not,_ she thought bitterly, _which suits me_ just _fine._ She remembered all too clearly what the Stranger had said to her, on the day she had been exiled (although she hadn’t seen him since, not even once).

> _“You’re an exile now, Rodageitmososa. A danger to society. Get used to it.”_

Severed from the Matrix. Forgotten. Disowned. _A disappointment._ An exile. That’s all that she was in Gallifrey’s eyes now, if she was even anything at all. How many years had it been since she’d run away, back home? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? Was Rassilon still the President? Was Gallifrey still corrupt? She’d been gone more than six hundred years, now, and she hadn’t cared to check; she knew the answer would break her hearts. Still heard how people whispered about her kind all across the universe in equal parts awe and fear. And she _hated_ it.

 _And this bastard is making me think about it all over again._ But still, she couldn’t bite down that little whisper at the back of her mind. He was dangerous, yes, of that she had no doubt… but wasn’t she? Wasn’t every Time Lord? And if he called himself the Master and she had embraced answering to the Redjay… what did Gallifrey think of _him_ ? And more importantly, what did _he_ think of Gallifrey?

“...what kind of name is the Master?”

It wasn’t exactly the question, of the many, that she had intended to ask. Roda pulled a face, resisting the urge to drop her head into her hands. But the Time Lord - the Master - took it all in his stride.

“I rather think I could ask the same of you,” replied the Master, smoothly. “Although - do you prefer ‘the Redjay’, or your full name?”

“I-”

“Oh come now my dear,” tsked the Time Lord, _oh_ so graciously, “you cannot possibly think you’ve gone this long without someone hearing about you.”

Roda raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, are you calling me _old_?”

“Distinguished,” argued the Master, smoothly. And then he glanced at her torn, archaic clothes. “ _Experienced,_ perhaps. Oh Redjay, I have read _all_ about you.”

“All good things,” responded Roda, sarcastically, “I’m sure.”

“Don’t undersell yourself!” declared the Master magnanimously, clearly beginning to grow… excited. Roda narrowed her eyes; someone who considered _her_ exciting was either misinformed or not to be trusted. Perhaps both. “Rassilon’s ward…”

Roda’s hand snapped to her torn sleeve, yanking the shirt back over her shoulder with a barely contained snarl. “I am _not_ his…!”

“Of course not,” purred the Master, all politeness and smiles now that he had the advantage over her. He had heard of her - somehow, impossibly - but she didn’t know a thing about him. “The very idea is… unpalatable.”

“You can say that twice,” muttered Roda.

But the Master wasn’t paying attention. He breezed past her, retrieving her accoutrements from the gelem warrior who held them. Roda inched towards the door while he was distracted, deciding that she hadn’t seen anyone carrying her bow, and that everything else could be replaced. _Even the bow, though Robin will never let me live it down that I let someone just_ take _it from me._ It might take a while, but there was nothing in her toolkit that she couldn’t find on the black market or rebuild. He could _have_ them, if it meant the difference between getting out of there and not. But the other gelem warrior grabbed her by the arm so tightly that she couldn’t help but bite down a yelp of pain. Before she had a chance to react her arm was twisted behind her back and she was on her knees again.

“You will not attempt to leave again,” intoned the warrior, in five voices all at once, like audio recordings playing over one another. Roda couldn’t help but grimace. “You are the guest of the Master.”

“Is - is this how he treats his _guests_ ?” growled Roda, well aware that moving too sharply could dislocate her shoulder. Gelem warriors were far stronger than normal humanoids. The strength of five, and the will of none… “Because if it _is_ I think I’d like to lodge a complaint.”

“You are the guest of the-”

The warrior stopped talking without any shock or reaction as it’s grip on her arm was suddenly gone. Roda heard a small _clip clop_ of something clattering to the ground behind her, smelled hair - her own - burning as a vicious heat rushed past her and illuminated the room. The other gelem warrior stood still as Roda stumbled forward a step and then spun to her feet, staring at the miniature, chalk-white figurine on the ground where the warrior had just been standing. She bent to pick it up - it was still warm to the touch - and then dropped it as the horrifying recognition of what had just happened hit her like a tidal wave.

As she turned to face the Master again he lowered what she now knew was his tissue compression eliminator, a look on his face that wasn’t quite disgust.

“Well, that was a waste,” he commented lightly, pocketing the weapon and reaching past Roda to pick up the miniaturized gelem warrior. “But you just can’t steal the staff these days.”

“What did you-?” Roda spluttered, running a hand through her hair, “I mean it was - he was - _what_?”

“I’m sure you can find your words dear Redjay.”

“Why did you _kill_ him?!”

The Master looked at her with an expression of utter calm on his face. “It was no longer a _him,_ ” he stated, simply, shrugging. “Whoever created it - the Vegans, I imagine, commissioned them originally - erased any, ah, _individualism_ , shall we say. Much like our ‘home’ tries to.” He smirked. “But then, I thought you would have known that from, what was it… Article 29.8?”

Roda just stared, at a loss for words.

“Anyway,” said the Master, snapping his fingers. The remaining gelem warrior disappeared through the same door they had taken Roda through, leaving her and the Master alone. “I would have thought a ‘thank you’ would suffice.”

“You - you _shot_ it!”

“Because it was threatening my _guest,_ ” replied the Master, rolling his eyes. “And I do think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot quite already as it is, don’t _you_ Redjay?”

“Gotten off on the wrong…” Roda shook her head in disbelief. “The wrong _foot_? You knocked me out and threatened to kill me!”

“You were snooping around my planet, setting off my proximity alarms. How was _I_ supposed to know you weren’t a threat?”

“You have…!” Roda couldn’t help but laugh. “You have _vastly better_ misjudged me if you think I’m _not_ a threat!”

“ _Have_ I?” asked the Master, pleasantly. “You are here because of the distress signal, I assume?” Roda hesitated, and she nodded. _No sense in lying._ “I thought as much. I picked it up myself,” he explained, absentmindedly holding out her tools to her, “and have been… monitoring the situation, shall we say. Wouldn’t do simply to rush in and make a mess of things.”

Roda was no idiot. She could sense a threat when she was looking one in the eye. But she also knew when she was being lied to… and he was telling the truth. He had picked up the distress signal. He was keeping an eye on the matter… and he was holding out her tools to her, _almost_ apologising, and had shot one of his bodyguards when it had threatened her (even if he’d threatened her first). And it seemed as though he had no love for Gallifrey, or at least for following their rules, which was a trait that she was inclined to trust, in a way. Or at least that she really, _truly_ wanted to trust. But he hadn’t earned that. Not yet. All he had earned was a second chance to prove that he wasn’t a bastard. And it would be a lot easier to work out what was going on from the inside, rather than risk him compressing _her_ tissue, as well.

She carefully took her tools, buckling them all back around her waist and making sure that they were comfortable, all the while not taking her eyes off the Master. He watched and waited calmly, even when she drew her knife and gave it a one-over. Slipping her hand into her pocket, she realised that the microchip was even still there, so if everything went wrong… she had the important bit she’d need to do something about it, either way. _Still no bow,_ she noted, distrustingly, _but perhaps they left it behind? Maybe I dropped it when they grabbed me, if they tore the string?_ It wasn’t impossible to think of… and it seemed strange for them to have all of her things _except_ that. Roda sighed, and ran a hand through her hair, making a vague attempt at getting it under control as she picked at her clothes with her other hand. _Well, at least I’m not defenceless, now. I feel less naked._ But she still wasn’t at _ease_ , by any stretch of the word.

As she got herself together she saw the Master walk across the room out of the corner of her eye, and let him put distance between them. His guard was down, but hers was not. He opened a cupboard as Roda tightened her toolkit one last time and made to follow him, taking out a bottle of some bright, purple liquid and a pair of glass tumblers. Now that she was aware of it, Roda could feel the TARDIS around her - and not just the extra-dimensional storage space he was using. The room felt alive, watching her when the Master was not. _And perhaps it is,_ she mused. _Maybe that’s why he can afford to look away._ She pressed her hand against the nearest wall as she watched the Master pour out two glasses, silently probing. The time machine didn’t talk back, but she felt it react, and did her best to make it feel like she wasn’t a threat.

No matter what it turned out its pilot was, she had no beef with _it_.

Finally the Master addressed her again, holding out one of the glasses for her to take. Roda shook her head, trying to silently turn it down. The Master simply gave a small sigh, placing it down beside the other glass on the table and gesturing at the whole ensemble with a generous smile.

“Feel free to test the drink if you like,” he said, the picture of politeness. Roda raised an eyebrow. “But I assure you, this vintage is _far_ too rare for me to consider poisoning it.”

“Who said anything about poison?”

Roda snorted, drawing a small container from her belt, and slipping a pair of litmus slips into each glass. A few seconds later, neither had changed colour… which didn’t mean that they weren’t poisoned; only that they were both the same.

“Well I can’t think why _else_ you’d turn down Arcalian plum brandy,” commented the Master with a chuckle. 

Roda paused. “ _You_ drink them.”

“Hmm?” The Master raised an eyebrow. “I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood the point of sharing a drink, Redjay.”

“Prove it. Both drinks.” Roda folded her arms across her chest, well aware that she was being petulant. “If you’re so sure.”

The Master, however, only shrugged and took a sip from both, even drinking from the bottle before topping up each glass, before she could even ask. She narrowed her eyes, only a little reassured, and then tentatively took the one that he had _not_ been handing out to her, sniffing it. Slowly, she took a drink, and was surprised by the taste. Sweet and tart, _very_ much like Arcalian plums. _Which I’ve not had in years… not since one of Peri’s brunches._ It was warm, delicious and familiar, and she couldn’t stop a small smile from escaping, despite all of her misgivings, as she had another drink, and sat down lightly on the edge of the wooden table. 

Evidently satisfied, the Master swished his own drink in one hand and sat down on his throne, utterly at ease. Roda risked another line of interrogation.

“...how do you know who I am?”

“I suppose I owe you that much,” decided the Master, drinking from his glass. And then he paused and added: “and perhaps a change of clothes, should you want them?” Roda resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Later, I suppose. But to answer your question…” he leaned forward, eyes sparkling, “I think you’ll find that you and I are _very_ alike, Redjay…”

“I doubt it,” she responded, perhaps rudely, with a shake of her head. “ _You’re_ Gallifreyan. Apparently _I’m_ ,” she frowned, trying to muster up her best impersonation of Rassilon, “a treasonous, arrogant and ungrateful child!”

The Master stifled a laugh. “Who was _that_ an impersonation of? Grand Cardinal Borusa?”

Without even thinking, Roda barked out a sharp, sincere laugh. “Omega’s beard, no. Though it is something he’d say…” She paused. “Wait, he’s a Grand Cardinal now?” The Master nodded, and Roda pulled a face. “...is he still teaching?”

“For our sins,” droned the Master, rolling his eyes. “Which are, I assume, legion.”

Roda smirked. “Ugh. Would’ve thought the old bastard would’ve withered away from bitterness by now…”

“Rassilon has.” Roda’s head snapped up, and she almost dropped the glass of brandy.

“...what did you say?”

“Withered up and died. _Long_ before I was loomed, of course.” If Roda hadn’t been sitting down, she would have fallen down. _Rassilon’s dead…?_ She didn’t even know _how_ to react. Relief? Anger? Sadness? “Why, was _that_ who you were impersonating?” She nodded wordlessly, downing the rest of the brandy in one go. _Gone._ Did that mean she could go home? Did she _want_ to? “Hmm. Well. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I’m sure.”

Despite herself, despite her shock, a little part of Roda began to warm up to the Master.

“Yeah…”

“More brandy?”

She let her glass be filled without saying a word, lost in her own thoughts and utterly unable to translate them. Rassilon’s death was going to sit with her for a while, she was sure, before it made any sense. The idea of him being _gone_ just seemed… impossible. He _was_ Gallifrey. For all that she hated him, his word had been utter law since the beginning of their kind… so was Gallifrey still the same, without him? Were the whispers of unease from the universe just remnants of the past, or was whoever had replaced him just as bad?

And how long _had_ she been gone for?

“Isn’t this far more pleasant?” commented the Master, after a good few minutes of mutual silence. Roda was deep into her second glass of brandy, more than happy to let the warmth dull her senses, despite the danger. It seemed easier than thinking, all of a sudden. “Sharing a drink with a potential ally?” She snorted, but it was only half-hearted. “We share an enemy, my dear Redjay. Gallifrey doesn’t think kindly of me, either. We are kindred spirits,” Roda let the Master talk, realising that if he _did_ turn out to be a bastard after all, she was increasingly not in the mood for a fight. _Perhaps he’s my kind of bastard, in a way._ “Renegades from the law. People who have been burned by the so-called _greatness_ of the Time Lords.”

“You don’t know me,” she argued, more for the principle of the thing than anything else. The Master shrugged.

“Perhaps. But you could change that. Do you know why I call myself the Master?”

Roda looked him up and down, and smirked. “I assumed it was compensating for something.”

The side of the Master’s eye twitched, but he let the comment slide. “It’s because I am the Master of my own fate,” he declared, passionately. He put down his now-empty glass and leaned forward, gripping the arms of his chair. “You and I are the same. _Better_ than those fools in stiff collars and their fancy robes! All I want,” he continued, almost wistfully, “is to be left to my devices and my _destiny._ Isn’t that all that anybody wants?”

Perhaps it was stupid of her. Perhaps it would seal her fate. But the centuries had been long and lonely and there was something very _vulnerable_ about the way that the Master was talking. Something that, Rassilon help her, _spoke_ to her. 

And was it so crazy to want a friend, after being alone for so long? Someone who might actually understand the depths of what she had lost, what had been forever taken from her by a corrupt and rancorous old man? The only company she’d had in years - outside of Sherwood Forest - had been criminals and contacts and the kinds of ne’er do wells who would stab her in the back as soon as look at her. _The kind of person that Gallifrey thinks_ I _am._ And for the first time in what felt like forever here was someone who might be just as lost and lonely as she was.

Maybe she’d been too quick to judge. _Or maybe I’m just more desperate than I thought._

“So what do you say, my dear Redjay?” Once again, the Master held out his hand. “Shall we try again, on the other foot this time?”

> _“He wants you to go mad._ Forget, _” said the Stranger, without a trace of emotion. Far too calmly. “Despair. Give up. Be forgotten.”_
> 
> _“I don’t understand.”_
> 
> _“You will. One day.”_

Against her better judgement, the Redjay took the Master’s hand. “Fine. But I’ll be watching you.”

“My dear,” grinned the Master, from ear to ear, “I wouldn’t expect _anything_ less…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is wondering, both flashbacks are from the end of [There, and Back Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25140040/chapters/69887574).


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“Time is a game played beautifully by children.”_   
>  **\- Heraclitus**

The first thing that Roda learned about the Master’s hospitality was that his TARDIS was a labyrinth, and the inner mechanisms of his mind not much better.

She couldn’t tell if it was his doing or the time machine’s, but every time that she tried to find her  _ own  _ way somewhere, she would wander in circles for a good ten minutes before opening literally  _ any  _ door and winding up back in the same room that she’d started in. If there was one thing she  _ actually  _ understood, it was TARDISes; and she knew that they could throw tantrums, but if this one was messing about with her of its own accord it was being particularly petulant.  _ Is this just what later models of TARDISes are, these days? Bratty?  _ All the same she tried to sweet talk it into letting her nosy around, and still it took her back to her appointed room without so much of a thrum of recognition.

It wasn’t that it was an unpleasant guest room, as guest rooms went. In fact, it was more than a little grand, just as much as the throne room was. A plush bed - four-poster, practically like something she could imagine the King or the Sheriff sleeping in, back in Sherwood - and every done up in something approaching Lincoln green.  _ Maybe the Master really  _ has  _ done his research. _ It was almost, but not quite, comforting. Something she knew, if not something she  _ liked _ .

There was a closet full of clothes, which she had hardly paid attention to, and a table with a handful of interesting-enough books and more of the Arcalian brandy. No windows, but then she was probably deep inside the TARDIS, so that made enough sense. The temperature was fine, there wasn’t a lock on the door, and while there always seemed to be a gelem warrior outside if she needed something. they didn’t stop her from  _ trying  _ to go anywhere. Apart from the vague sensation that she was being kept prisoner… it was at least a  _ comfortable  _ prison. Which didn’t make Roda feel particularly better about it, but at least she wasn’t being manhandled around the place, which at least gave her the space to figure out her next move.

And then there was her ‘host’. She couldn’t get a read on the Master. Sitting cross-legged on the bed - checking all of her tools for any damage that the gelem warriors might have done to them, or tinkering that the Master could have quickly tried - she ran everything over in her mind. Here was a Time Lord who knew where she was, and seemed to be…  _ impressed  _ by her. Not repulsed. He had seen her brand and his whole demeanour had changed not for the worst, but for the better. Her name - the name of the  _ Redjay  _ \- had been enough for him to try and extend the hand of friendship, and he claimed to have no love of his own for Gallifrey. And so while it made a pleasant change that her reputation preceded her in a positive way, and she should have been quite happy to take advantage of that, he was like no Time Lord she had ever met before.  _ There must be something he wants. He can’t just be excited to see me because he’s  _ heard  _ of me… but  _ what _? _

But he was being  _ nice  _ to her. Almost. Sort of. Perhaps. ( _ Am I that desperate for someone to talk to? _ ) Keeping her locked up, probably, but he’d given her brandy, a room, changes of clothes that she’d so far ignored. Stopped his warrior from injuring her. And he wanted to talk, and had left her alone to think when it had been clear that she was in no mood, really, to talk to him. Which was more respect than any Time Lord had given her in a long, long time. And then there was the distress signal; he said that he’d picked it up too, and he had his eye on the situation. Could he shed some light on what was going on, if Roda asked him?  _ Would  _ he? Was he here to help? Or… no. The SOS had mentioned him, and if he’d only just turned up… but perhaps that was why there was a statue of him? Maybe there  _ was  _ nothing wrong…?

Rassilon, but she was confused. Just the appearance of another Time Lord was enough of a spanner in the works to throw her  _ right  _ off. But one who actually seemed to  _ like  _ her? And then there was the throbbing headache that she had. She couldn’t tell if it was a migraine, or a concussion, or something else, but it wasn’t easy to think straight. Her thoughts kept coming back to the Master’s fascination with her. Maybe she could ask if he had a Zero Room… then she’d feel more herself, more clear-headed. Ready to figure out his game.

A knock at the door finally broke her out of her thoughts. Quickly collecting her belongings again, Roda swung her legs over the bed, ignored a slight wave of nausea, and opened the door just enough to peek through. A solid gelem warrior stood there expectantly, blankly. It’s black eyes seemed to stare right through her, but all the same she felt… watched. Like it was waiting for her to do something, or say something. Even when she opened the door further - satisfied that she could probably take one out, if she tried hard enough - it didn’t take a step into the room.

Resisting the urge to swear at it, she finally broke the silence.

“...Yes?”

“You are the guest of the Master.”

Roda narrowed her eyes. Whether they were the Master’s creation or the Vegans, she didn’t like them. Didn’t like the way that they had been created, or the way that they spoke. The way that they couldn’t think for themselves. The Master said that he wanted to control his own fate, and so did she but they  _ couldn’t _ . It felt too much slavery, even if they couldn’t understand it themselves. How could he want control of his fate, and yet still keep - keep servants? Were they better off with him, or was it more sinister?

“Apparently I am,” she replied, tentatively, hand gripping the sharpest tool on her belt that she could reach.

“You will accompany the Master to dinner.”

Roda snorted. Right. Wine and dine the prisoner. “Oh I  _ will _ , will I?”

“You will dress accordingly.”

She barked out a laugh, shaking her head. “Karn and Mondas,  _ if  _ I feel like ‘accompanying the Master’ to dinner, I will dress however I  _ like. _ ”

“You will not refuse the Master’s hospitality.” The gelem warrior took a step towards her, and despite herself Roda took a step back. “You are a guest of the Master.”

“Yes,” she snapped, rapidly losing patience. But the warrior seemed unaffected by her temper or her scowl. “You’ve  _ said  _ that.”

She made to shut the door in its face, but a heavy foot blocked her way. It didn’t even seem to react to having the wood slammed hard on it, even when she did it again, and tried to give it a shove. 

“You will dress accordingly.”

“I will  _ not _ .”

“You will accompany the Master to dinner.”

_ Like  _ Skaro  _ I will. He can be Master of  _ his  _ fate but if he thinks he can be Master of  _ mine  _ then he’s got another fucking thing coming.  _ But the gelem warrior was persistent. It gripped the door in one outstretched hand, and Roda pulled hers back just before the wood bent and splintered and gave way. The warrior didn’t seem to mind the wood digging into its synthetic skin, but Roda stared in quiet horror as it simply opened what remained of the door again -  _ did the TARDIS feel that?!  _ \- and let itself into her room. And then it stood still again, blocking her only route of escape but apparently content to have done what it had been sent to do; or whatever it was doing. Rassilon only knew what was going through the things head. 

“You are refusing the Master’s hospitality,” it intoned, matter-of-factly.

Roda drew her knife, pointed it where she thought the thing might  _ almost  _ hurt, and snarled.

“If you want me to go  _ anywhere _ ,” she declared, refusing to yield any more ground to the intruder, “you’ll have to drag me there  _ yourself _ . What will your Master say about his fucking hospitality  _ then _ ?”

***

“Again, I  _ do  _ apologise for the, ahem...  _ misunderstanding _ .”

If looks could kill, Roda was sure that the Master would be dead already. There was something about him, something that rubbed her the wrong way. A vague sensation that the situation that she was in right now was entirely his fault, and that he had orchestrated the whole bloody mess. But  _ she  _ had chosen to come to Qualactin.  _ She  _ had been so stupid as to trigger some sort of alarm and get herself captured by the gelem warriors. And  _ she  _ had made the decision not to try and escape… if escape was what she actually wanted to do. She was hardly sure. And so she couldn’t find it in herself to properly blame him.

Then again… there was the dress. Roda had never, in her life, had to wear a dress. There had been robes on Gallifrey of course, but then she had never been particularly fond of them. Given the choice, after graduation, she had gravitated towards trousers, or at least anything that she couldn’t get her legs tangled up in. And there was the slit right up the side of this one which went practically up to her thigh and so maybe she  _ wouldn’t  _ get tangled up in it but she also felt… exposed. Manipulated. But dresses were all that the closet had had in it, and the warrior had been maddeningly insistent that it be allowed to deal with her torn clothes, and so here she was.

She had at least chosen the one with the most fabric. A slim, pale green number that covered her neck, but not her back or shoulders. But did the Master honestly think that just because she was a woman, this was how she’d want to dress? There would be words.

“Misunderstanding?” she asked, without about as much calm as she could muster. Which was, she imagined, not especially diplomatic, but a lot of calm, given that she was sort of a prisoner and definitely in a dress and certainly more than a little confused. “You and I have a very different idea of hospitality.”

The Master shot her a look, a very practiced look. The kind of look that almost said that you were sorry, in all the ways that social niceties were meant to say it. But also said ‘can you blame me?’ and left Roda unsure if she should be more annoyed, or flattered.

“Forgive me my dear, but I didn’t imagine that torn clothes would be suitable for dinner.”

Roda took a deep breath, mentally counted past ten (for good measure) and managed a smile.

“If it hadn’t been for how you…  _ invited  _ me to dinner,” she said, carefully, “ _ my  _ clothes wouldn’t be torn.” She pulled a face, the facade dropping for a second. “I don’t…  _ do  _ dresses.”

“Well,” said the Master.  _ Did he just… purr?  _ “They certainly do  _ you  _ justice.” His eyes trailed across her body appreciatively, and Roda decided that okay, maybe she was a  _ little  _ flattered. “And isn’t justice rather your modus operandi?”

Roda couldn’t help but laugh. But, here; at least now this put them on more common ground. Or if not common ground, at least a conversation starter she could find a foothold in. Ignoring the way that the Master was sizing her up she crossed the room that she’d been led into, mentally cataloguing escape routes and threats as she did so.

There were two doors. The one she had been led through, and one that led to regions unknown, behind where the Master stood. Again, no windows - it  _ was  _ a TARDIS, after all - but there were decorations on the wall that would function as heavy, blunt objects in a pinch, and even the gelem warrior hadn’t been able to keep her from keeping something sharp under the dress. (The hardest part had been looking for a place to conceal it. The warrior hadn’t seemed to understand the idea of looking away, and while Roda had spent enough time in Sherwood Forest that she hardly cared about modesty, she would have liked a little bit more privacy.) But for the most part, it was a normal enough, if intimately sized, dining room. A fireplace, a table set for two, the ship’s technology almost concealed by the rustic charm. She found herself appreciating it more than she had the throne room, even if she was still on her toes. If it was  _ designed  _ to be inviting to her then, well, it was working.

“Thanks. I think,” she responded, finally, stopping close enough to the Master to meet his gaze. She would not meekly, obediently, sit down and continue to be led.  _ He  _ might find this amusing, but she was a Time Lord. His equal. No matter what Gallifrey thought. “But next time you insist on inviting me to dinner-”

“I’m so glad you’re considering a ‘next time’...”

“Maybe  _ don’t  _ try to do me ‘justice’ by sending a genetically engineered  _ slave  _ to force me into a dress and herd me to your dining room like a lost sheep.” Roda raised an eyebrow, challengingly. “If you claim to know  _ so  _ much about me.”

There was a pause, a silence that seemed to drag out, wherein Roda considered that perhaps she had said the wrong thing. There was a look on the Master’s face that suggested he wasn’t used to being spoken to like this. Not that it was, in fact, the  _ wrong  _ thing; she stood by every word she had said. Nothing about the gelem warriors sat right with her, and she  _ didn’t  _ appreciate being manipulated, nor was she entirely certain how she felt about the Master’s apparent interest in her. She was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt… but after being burned by the universe - by Time Lords especially - enough times, that only went so far. But then again, once he’d recognized who she was, he hadn’t done anything  _ directly  _ threatening.  _ Should I really just  _ excuse  _ his threat to kill me? I don’t know.  _ And she was being… brusque, to say the least.

But then the Master’s face broke into a smirk of amusement, and then a sincere chuckle. He nodded his head thoughtfully and gestured towards the table with one gloved hand, eyes sparkling.

“Very well. I shall endeavour to remember your preferences.”

Roda let the Master sit first, before joining him. The remainder of the bottle of brandy was sat in the middle of the table, and without waiting for an invitation she helped herself to it while the Master busied himself with carving up some kind of unfamiliar meat with almost uncanny precision. The warrior had disappeared, Roda noticed, and the food  _ did  _ smell excellent. The meat made the air taste spicy, and there was a little boat of what was probably something like gravy, and a handful of side dishes. She found herself wondering who had  _ made  _ the meal, and then her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it had been a  _ very  _ long day, and she quickly ignored the line of thinking as the Master silently nodded for her to hand him her plate and she was soon faced with one of the nicer looking feasts that she’d seen in a  _ long  _ time. Not too much, not too grand, but it  _ did  _ show off a little. Then again, she was more accustomed to having to remember to actually eat, or buying street meats on whatever planet she was passing through. Home-cooked meals were a thing of the past.

She pushed a vegetable around her plate as the Master settled back into his chair, watching her carefully. Calculatingly.  _ Though,  _ she supposed,  _ I’m probably behaving exactly the same way.  _ Two renegade Time Lords… despite herself, the thought made her grin.  _ Two of us _ . If Rassilon were still around, she could only imagine the veins popping on the side of his neck. As something like a pea made a dash for the edge of her plate Roda stabbed it hurriedly with her fork, popping it in her mouth before she could make an idiot of herself; satisfied that she wasn’t about to ask him to taste everything again, the Master laughed silently, and began to eat in turn.

For most of the meal it was quiet, and pleasant… and then Roda put her foot in her mouth.

“So why  _ are  _ you here on Qualactin?”

The Master took a moment to savour a drink of his brandy, his expression thoughtful. He lowered the glass and rested his chin in one hand, stroking his beard.

“The same as you, I would imagine.” Roda raised an eyebrow, beckoning him to continue; a part of her still subconsciously waiting for him to slip up and for the pleasantries to fade away. “Curiosity.”

Roda couldn’t help but snort. “ _ I  _ came here because of a distress signal,” she pointed out, gesturing with her fork. “But there’s a statue that looks suspiciously like you in the middle of an abandoned square. It’s not exactly the same.”

“Ah, yes. The statue…” The Master smirked, taking another drink. “Not a perfect likeness, I’m sure you’ll agree.” Roda blinked; of all the answers, she hadn’t expected him to just outright  _ admit  _ to it. Then again, what else was he supposed to do? Convince her she’d hallucinated the whole thing? She wasn’t that stupid. “Then again, they did use  _ rather  _ a lot of their precious oolion. I shouldn’t complain.” 

“I - just…” Roda spluttered. “ _ Why  _ is there a statue of you? Who built it?”

“The miners, of course.” The Master shrugged. “As to why… well, I  _ do  _ rule the planet.” At Roda’s no doubt wrong-footed expression, he continued. “You have been to Sol-3, correct?” Roda nodded. “A perfect example, then! Many nations are in the habit of building statues of their great rulers.”

Roda pursed her lip. “So great that I picked up a distress signal?”

The Master sighed.

“There are uprisings, of course. Reasons for protest. After all, need I remind you that  _ I  _ did not commission the gelem warriors you find so distasteful?” Roda opened her mouth and then shut it again. “I cannot simply  _ destroy  _ them-”

“You  _ literally  _ shot one this morning!”

“It malfunctioned,” sniffed the Master. “But for the most part, it would be… cruel,” he said, stressing the final word as he pinned her with a look, “to simply dispose of something I find distasteful. And so I put them to less dangerous work than endless hours spent in a mine.”

It… wasn’t an unreasonable explanation. Roda fell quiet again, chewing absentmindedly at the meat - which tasted, she couldn’t help but think, a lot like venison, which Robin had poached from the King from time to time to make a point - and thinking the answer over.  _ It’s not like I have anything else to go on.  _ The signal had been garbled, and only his name and a few scant details had been legible. Her mind drifted to the corrupted chip that she’d taken from the abandoned home. It would take her a little while to repair it, see if he was telling the truth. But was there much reason for him to lie? Unpleasant though gelem warriors were, they  _ had  _ been people, once.  _ Could I kill them, when they’re only following orders? When they were once people?  _ She couldn’t answer that question. A handful - so it seemed - working for the Master definitely did sound better… but was it too good to be true?

She sighed to herself, massaging her temple. She’d expected the whole thing to be relatively clear cut. Go in, find out what the problem was, fix it, and slip silently into the vortex. Instead, it looked like she was going to have to hang around and do her sleuthing out in the open. Starting, it seemed, with a Time Lord who was simultaneously tempting and dangerous and whose motives seemed to be some unknown, incomprehensible entity that only he understood. A Time Lord who had killed, threatened and cajoled… but who was feeding her, stood with  _ her  _ against  _ Rassilon _ , and answered her questions without arguing about them.  _ Gallifrey forbid it be easy on me. _

“Alright. Let’s say I believe you.” The Master chuckled to himself, but didn’t comment. “ _ Why  _ rule a planet?” He raised a curious eyebrow. “You’re a Time Lord. This is a TARDIS. You could go literally anywhere, do  _ literally  _ anything… and you’re ruling a planet with abandoned habitation quarters-”

“Climate change,” he interrupted, casually. “They abandoned the town you were in because of the dust storms, and the long journeys to the mines.”

“Alright. But what about the uprisings? The protests?”

“I don’t think I need to tell  _ you  _ how hard it is to please  _ everyone. _ ”

Roda changed angles, hoping that if there was a reason to trip her up, she would find it.

“Pirates?”

“I find that ‘this planet is ruled by a Time Lord’ tends to deter... scavengers.”

“But why  _ oolion _ ?” asked Roda, her tone growing frustrating, slamming the fork down on the table. The Master didn’t even react to the clatter or her rising anger, simply continuing to watch her. “I know it’s  _ rare  _ but it’s mostly used for - what? Cuff links?” She nodded at his wrists, and then gestured vaguely at what she was ninety percent certain was an exterior wall. “Statues? Some mechanics?”

“Why not?” The Master raised an eyebrow. “My dear, if I’m to be lectured by a master  _ thief  _ on the motivations for my actions…”

“I don’t steal for myself, though,” countered Roda. “I’m trying to fix things.”

For a second, the Master’s expression changed, and Roda could almost hear his usually so well-guarded thoughts.  _ Something about ‘fixing’, and ‘a Doctor’?  _ But the moment quickly passed, and he sat up straight with fresh vigour. If she had to guess, he was actually  _ enjoying  _ the argument.

“And you save nothing for yourself?” asked the Master, pleasantly. “The things you need to survive as an exile,” he waved a languid hand at her exposed shoulder, the brand impossible to miss. “Am I to believe they simply fall from the sky when you need them? How very magnanimous of the universe.”

“I mean…” Roda stumbled. “That’s-”

“Different?” The Master snorted. “I am merely doing what you do.” Roda opened her mouth to argue, but he only raised a hand. “I am surviving. Just on a… more  _ ambitious  _ scale.”

And for all that Roda was sure there was a counterpoint to be made there, she couldn’t find it. Until she found out for herself, all she had was the Master’s word.  _ Master of his own fate.  _ She had believed the Stranger on flimsier guidance, and she had thought that Rassilon would defend her. What kind of judge of character was she, really?  _ Except… I swore I’d never let myself get hurt like that again. What if this is all a trick?  _ She told herself never to trust anyone again…. but what about Robin? John? Will? Allan? Marion? She could trust  _ them _ . What about  _ Peri _ ?

She would sleep on it. For now, there was food, and there was conversation. If something was wrong, she could handle it better - argue, escape, fight, if need be - on an empty stomach. On an empty stomach, the headache might fade away and she might be able to make a better judgement on the Master. If he  _ was  _ on the level then he couldn’t keep her locked up in his TARDIS and expect her to trust him. 

That’s how she would test him. The thought gave her some relief, and she picked up her knife and fork again, and took a drink of the brandy, and tried to pay attention to the small talk. 


End file.
